Talk about missing the point
An Alert Janeite pointed us to an article in Canada’s National Post that started out to be about the sale/non-sale of the Rice Portrait and ended up as a diatribe about beauty vs. intelligence, not to mention: isn’t it lucky that Jane Austen was plain so that she didn’t marry and could write her books?
While plain women like Austen are disadvantaged in the mating game, they find compensation in their unfettered access to whatever creativity it is in their gift to exploit. But extraordinary beauty in a woman usually turns her attention away from objective self-expression, condemning her to a life of relentless self-consciousness and an obsession with loving mirrors — real ones, and those contained in other peoples’ eyes.
As in Austen’s time, most of us know our place in this unfair but unchangeable aesthetic scheme. But sometimes, awkwardness arises when beauties flout duties: that is to say, when public symbols mistake reverence for their beauty as validation of their inner worth, and think they should be looked to for inspiration as well as being looked at. Think, for instance, of elegant Princess Diana and Margaret Trudeau in her ravishing young womanhood.
As a princess or political consort, Austen wouldn’t have driven men ga-ga. But since it is far more terrible to imagine an aesthetic world without Elizabeth Bennet than the tabloids without their princesses and trophy wives, how lucky that my favourite literary character’s creator was just plain Jane.
When it comes to reasons for Jane Austen’s failure to marry (and why it should be portrayed as a “failure” escapes our understanding), it’s likely that “she wasn’t pretty enough” ranked way, way under “she had no fortune.”
May 4th, 2007 at 9:29 am
Not to mention that she had a proposal that she refused. So had she married Harris Bigg-Wither would people now think that she wasn’t quite so plain?
May 4th, 2007 at 11:11 am
Of course, as we all know, it is always the beautiful people who marry, and the plain ones who are single. Argh! I think the people talking about it like this have not really thought through the implications of what they’re saying.
And completely agree with you, Mags, money was more the issue — and even more than that, Jane’s determination not to marry for money but for love, and that opportunity never presented itself.
May 4th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
So all literary figures are ugly, then! They must be, otherwise they’d have been too “distracted” to write.
Oh dear; I should stop making eyes at Nathaniel Hawthorne - what will people think???
May 4th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
ummmm… What the H-E double hockey sticks is this guy talking about?!?!? Talk about a rant! One paragraph doesn’t have anything to do with another! How do you go from talking about a supposed portrait of Jane Austen to talking about the beauty of Princess Diana???
May 5th, 2007 at 8:07 am
Not quite true Amy P.
She had a proposal, she accepted, (had a nice cup of tea and a lie down - thought better of it), and withdrew it the following morning.
The writer really is clutching at straws. Plain looking people get married every single day across the globe. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Maybe Harris B-W appreciated her wit and charm’s over her physical self. Intelligence normally lasts a lot longer than a beautiful face.
May 5th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman must either be plain and clever or pretty and dumb. Gah!
May 5th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Is it so very hard for people to believe that Austen’s skill had nothing whatsoever to do with her sexual allure, beuaty or love life - that in fact the degree to which she was beautiful (or was not) had little or no impact on her life’s work because she was…an artist! That a woman’s life could be determined by something other than her physical appearance - such as her brain!
And incidentally - in my experience, most women are pretty in some way or another. Perhaps not stunning, but most are pretty. So why this nonsensical division between the beautiful and the plain? There’s a vast area inbetween.
May 5th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
“Nay, Sir Walter,” cried Mrs. Clay,”this is being severe indeed. Have a little mercy….We are not all born to be handsome.”
Bind folks often develop an acute sense of hearing. We have all heard of this type of “compensation”. That a plain woman can “compensate” for her lack of beauty (and, consequently, fail in the “mating game”) by becoming a great writer is news to me.
Singleness is a gift. Marriage is a gift. Neither is a “game”.
As my fellow Janeites have mentioned, there are many plain married women and many beautiful unmarried women- and I am sure that we ALL have favorite authors who were/are married as well as favorites who were/are single.
May 5th, 2007 at 10:18 pm
To Blair Rogers:
This is what I get for posting in a rush! Yes, I knew the logistics of the Harris Bigg-Wither proposal/acceptance/rejection. My point was that some people seem to take her single state as proof of her plainness. Logically, that would mean that if she had married, her married state would be proof of her beauty. It’s a ridiculous stereotype totally disconnected from reality.
Really, where is the evidence that she was plain? The descriptions of her appearance by her family and others who knew her don’t support the idea. I’m not saying that she was a ravishing beauty, but she wasn’t repulsive-looking, and her reported vivacity would have gone a long way towards making her attractive. But honestly, I don’t care. What difference does it make what she looked like?
May 7th, 2007 at 1:03 am
Lori said: I think the people talking about it like this have not really thought through the implications of what they’re saying.
I totally agree. On all levels. There is way too much missing from this in regards to the beauty/self-image/intelligence/inappropriate-societal-expectations-of-women discussion.
May 7th, 2007 at 9:00 am
Amy P
Rushing never does serve one well. Life is short - Go slow is my mantra.
I’d like to think that I’m a ‘plain ordinary person’ - and I’ve even managed to wed, despite all the super-models, Hollywood hunks and air-head celebrities of this world conspiring against that eventuality with their ravishingly good looks.
I’m happy to report that my wife and I have even managed to provide 4 new HBW descendants, even with our plainness. Astonishing I know. I also type this one handed as I cuddle Harris, one of the twins we had in Nov. 2006, who has had one last milky feed for the night.
He’s not plain - he’s all baby new and lovely.
May 7th, 2007 at 9:29 am
Are they actually suggesting that Jane Austen must have been horrendously ugly to write such amazing novels? I suppose the idea that smart people are ugly, mateless freaks will never fully disappear from common thought. Please- give the great Ms. Austen some credit.